Critical Infrastructure Protection
by karebear
Summary: Critical infrastructure is a term used by governments to describe assets that are essential for the functioning of a society.


**Title:** Critical Infrastructure Protection

**Author:** karebear

**Rating:** PG

**Summary/Notes: **A long time ago (Early Day 3) I wrote a story in which Tony and Michelle had a daughter, and since then she's been one of my favorite characters that I've created for fanfic, though she rarely gets to come out to play. With Tony's return at the beginning of Day 7, I realized that the character didn't have to vaporize, and I was suddenly fascinated by the effects the loss of Michelle and Tony's activities in the intervening years would have on a young child - and how having a child would affect Tony's actions and motivations. So what I wound up was this...

* * *

"You remind me of someone," he says quietly, his face pressed into her still damp hair. The shampoo smells vaguely of bananas. She twists away from him and scribbles in her coloring book, pressing the crayon down hard into the paper and scrawling in deliberate, violent arcs.

"I _know_, Daddy."

In truth, she reminds him of two people. One is Mommy, who died a long time ago. The other is someone named Kim, who is a grown up now but who Daddy knew when she was a little girl.

She drops the green crayon and pulls a yellow one out from the tattered cardboard case, and starts filling in the star at the top of the tree, more carefully. It's a Christmas coloring book, even though it's June. Daddy bought it for her at the Salvation Army. Neither of them really care much about seasonal appropriateness. She likes it because it reminds her of her favorite time of the year, when there are decorations and carols and sometimes it snows. She finishes the star and finds the red and blue to start into the ornaments, closing her eyes and wishing, the way she always does, that she could stop _reminding_ him.

It's dark outside by the time she finishes coloring, and she slips down from the chair, finds the TV remote under the couch, and counts up the channels one-two-three until she gets to the one that shows the Chicago Cubs. That's the only team Daddy will watch, even though they don't always live in Chicago.

Right now they are living somewhere in Florida. The sign outside says "Motel", but it doesn't look like any motel she's ever seen. For one thing, she has her own bedroom, and there's the couch, and an old refrigerator that's painted an ugly green color. The couch turns into a bed, but most nights, Daddy falls asleep before he remembers that. The TV chatters on in the background, still on when she wakes up the next morning. She passes it on the way to the kitchen. It's not hard to find something to eat, there aren't that many options. She sets two jars down on the counter, and untwists the wire wrapped around the plastic sleeve holding the loaf of bread.

She carefully paints a slice with purple jelly and peanut butter. They have creamy now because it was on sale, even though she and Daddy both like crunchy better. Daddy wakes up later than her most days, but he's awake now. The sound of water running through the bathroom sink goes away and he appears behind her.

"Don't we have anything else to eat?"

"No."

He grunts and sits at the table.

She finishes assembling the sandwiches and stacks them onto a paper towel, carrying the small tower carefully from the kitchenette to put it down in front of Daddy. She crawls into the chair next to him and takes a small bite of the first sandwich. Daddy picks up another one and gobbles down half of it in one bite. He taps his foot in a jittery rhythm under the table as he swallows.

"Why aren't you at school?"

"It's summer."

He nods, and takes another, smaller bite as an excuse to look away.

_God_, he needs to get her out of the house. He can't stand seeing Michelle in her, needing so much from him, and always _here_.

He won't let her out of his sight for the same reason.

Still, the need to get her out of the house grows more insistent and immediate when he recognizes the cell phone singing out from his jacket pocket, an annoyingly upbeat ringtone he hasn't cared enough to change.

"Go outside and play," he tells his daughter as he flips open the phone. She slips out of the chair and slowly crosses their small living room, the remainder of the sandwich still in her hand. He watches the door swing after her before he returns to the phone.

"Santos," he says gruffly. The word means "saint", a bitter irony that amuses him anew every time he uses the alias. But he hasn't been Almeida for years.

The voice on the other end of the phone, someone he hasn't met and will never meet, relays a terse message, one that lifetimes ago would have made him sick to his stomach, but now he just snaps the phone shut and steps out into the daylight.

The apartment opens out to an abandoned lot, knee-deep weed-choked brown grass littered with empty cans and ripped up newspaper. Across a tattered strip of grey asphalt neon signs glow, advertising beer and live girls.

Gaby sits on an old tire, her back to him, still chewing on the last bits of peanut butter and jelly. He takes a deep breath and kneels next to her.

"Hey, kiddo."

He wraps his arms around her, and she doesn't pull away this time. Instead, she leans against his chest, her bright brown eyes meeting his. "Let's go somewhere, huh," he suggests. "Anywhere you want."

Her face lights up, an ear to ear grin that makes everything worth it, and she bounces up and down, for a moment every bit the seven year old she is.

"Anywhere?" she asks, hanging on his promise. "Can we go to the zoo?"

"Sure."

He lingers behind her, watching her run down the concrete paths, pressing her face against glass aquariums and shrinking away from metal bars when the big cats roar. They sit on a bench watching the monkeys for nearly an hour.

"Look at that one!" she squeals. "It's like the one in my book!" She means Curious George. He can't remember how long it's been since he's read to her. She doesn't let him anymore, now that she can read on her own. He remembers a note scrawled on the bottom of a mid-year report that she's above grade level in reading, and he's glad that she won't struggle in school the way he did.

They eat cotton candy for dinner, letting in melt down into it's component colored sugars in their mouths as they stand behind a plate glass window watching the polar bear.

She hardly pauses to take a breath the entire bus ride home, reciting over and over the finest details of each animal's fur, or feathers, the way the dolphins jumped and the seals dived and even the prairie dogs burrowed through their network of tunnels. He stares out the window, counting streetlights, seeking the twinkling red and blue towers that send signals into the night, finding and refining all the separate components that together build _critical infrastructure_.

He can't fall asleep, can never fall asleep, and he's run out of beer, and so he flips channels, never lingering on one for longer than 6 minutes. He does this until the only offerings are infomercials, long monotone advertisements for gym equipment and cleaning products, and then he slips into Gaby's room. She'd been asleep, but he's woken her up now, accidentally-on purpose.

"Baby," he whispers, wrapping his arm around her as she squirms closer to him, softly exhaling warm breath against the crease of his elbow. "You know I'd do anything for you, right?"

"Mmm-hmm," she mumbles, her eyes already closed again.

"Sweet dreams," he breathes quietly.

"Night, Daddy," she whispers back.

The next morning, they take a plane to DC.


End file.
